Skip to content

2000 Senate · MI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-11-04 (3 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 50%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.48% · Republican 47.86%

D+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 50 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.475 − 47.861 = 1.614
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (1.614) = -7.614
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.614| = 7.614

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63751, race ID 1694 (538 database).